OP
Short Game
Veteran Member
...(although I think everyone complains about the chips falling under the chipper). I can't complain as I knew that before I bought the machine.
One thing I noticed in the pictures Short Game has posted is he appears to do a lot of chipping! I'm going to guess he uses his chipper more then many residential/small farm owners do.
I lived with the chips blowing out on the ground for the first few months. I even spent that few months building my trailer dumping device just to deal with it. Even with that, it was still a pain getting them into the trailer, so then I built the blower. As many chips as I was making, I knew I would want more.
Between our combined pieces of property, I and my neighbors have quite a bit of woodlot. I get everyone's woodshed filled each year as a service project. This makes for lots of branches and brush to chip. At first I combined the chips with cow manure from a local farmer to make compost. The manure was so dirty and full of rocks that I stopped that and got given a fairly worn out sickle bar and started combining chips and fresh cut grass. That worked better anyway. Now we just top-dress with the chips.
I have an interest in learning to grow mushrooms. I have done shiitake logs, inoculated with sawdust spawn. But I want to try, along with more logs, growing them on plastic bags of chips.
This pic is from yesterday. I'm picking these after lunch. Those logs are four years old and I don't know for how much longer they'll produce. I am going to be making mushroom logs for my next try today. Should be better with a little experience under my belt.